Today an AA Pilot with 33 years experience was suspended for 6 months because of a stunt he pulled earlier this year.

He was piloting one of AA's brand new 777's from DFW to MIA (It had just been delivered from Boeing to American at DFW) and he flew over his home in Daytona Beach, Florida at a very low altitude (less than 1,000 ft !!!!!) in order to give his neighbors a good look at his brand new jet. He lives in an airpark which is a subdivision of homes with their own landing strip so people can keep small planes right by their house. His neighbors were all watching. THere was a small number of American Airlines folks aboard the jet too. Other people on the ground saw this huge jetliner buzzing the neighborhood and thought it was about to crash so they called the FAA at the Daytona Beach Airport. He was suspended for the illegal operation, flying below a minimum altitude, and basically reckless operation of a jetliner.

I think it happened in February but the FAA had to do a formal investigation. He was flying extremely low but not low enough to catch on something. But the 777 is a HUGE jet so it must have been quite a sight!!!!

The American Airlines pilot in question must have flown over Spruce Creek airport which is a private airport community with such residents as John Travolta. I have flown into that same airport a few times myself. It is in a rural area. While I always support safety and structure, I wonder how anal we are all becoming with these rules. He surely knows every tower and obstruction in the area and flying "below 1,000'" is no big deal. I'm sorry to hear he got in trouble. People calling into the FAA or tower in Daytona Beach probably know nothing about aviation. Any aviation minded person would have watched to see if the 777 crashed or had problems (which it obviously didn't). As long as he didn't deviate from standard procedures with paying passengers onboard, I have no problem with his maneuver. I think we are getting way too bureaucratic.

It was indeed that same field. As far as I know there were no paying passengers aboard; he was ferrying the plane to MIA. (I could be wrong).

The newswire story said something about accusing him of flying below 500 ft which he said he didn't. Still, though, I think that's a pretty immature stunt for a veteran Pilot of one of the biggest jets around.

A few years ago, a pilot at our competition on the east coast of Canada thought he'd say "Hi!" to his folks at the lake 8 miles from the Halifax airport. On approach he cancelled his IFR clearance and proceeded up the lake with the Dash 8 at about 200 feet. Two cottages up from his parents was a Transport Canada inspector visiting his RCMP pal. Not only were they able to get the ident of the DH8, they were able to positively identify the pilot!

$2,000 fine. Talk about being busted.

As a note - certain procedures would indeed have been broken in the 777 example above. Company Standard Operating Procedure for one, and in all likelihood, the deactivation of the GPWS system.

So as fun as it might be in all our (pilot's) minds to do, it is still something out of the ordinary, thus a reduction in safety.

Wow!!!
Would have loved to see that one.
Still unfortunately the bigger the Jet the harder it is to get away with that sort of thing....HAHAHA
On a serious note, just a question to any AA pilots or any other airline pilots in the US out there, I heard through the grapevine that any pilots who do the Hawaii route have a custom of doing a low flight over one of the beaches there, on their last trip, as a kind of send off. One of the stories i heard was that an MD11 was seeing doing this, but that maybe he went a little too low, as the Tower got a call from somebody on a hotel balcony claiming to be face to face with the wing of the aircraft. The 'incident was left however by AA as they said the pilot was now retired and nobody else complained.
Sounds like my kind of airline.
They know the pilots know what there doing and they let them have a proper treat on their retirement.

This is not the first such incident - a Britannia Airways (big UK charter airline) crew were all fired cos the captain buzzed his kids' school in a 767 on a ferry flight. They flew by at about 500'.

A mate of mine who is a BA 737-400 captain (ex-Dan Air) based at Heathrow often calls his wife on the mobile. "Honey, I'm lined up on 26 left, see you in a minute." They then take off and he pulls a particularly sharp turn over the house. It's not really a deviation, the standard turn takes place there anyway, but he phones ahead and tightens the turn to show off the the wife and her friends in the back garden. I know it sounds unlikely given the fuss made about mobiles interfering with avionics, but it doesn't seem to have any bad effect. (I know there could be interference but when I ride in the jumpseat I sometimes hear the sound of phones locking onto ground stations like when you're on a normal phone and a mobile is about to ring nearby, usually just before landing - this is caused by phones left switched on in checked bags as they come into range.) I've been in the back garden, spoken to him as they turn onto the runway, and seen the jet roar by a minute or two later, one wing straight up in the air.

As for the AA incident, very cool. I can see the motivation when you live at that airpark - some people literally have private jets in their garage. Sometimes you just gotta show people who's boss, and what better way than with a 777? It even beats Travolta's 707-100. BTW, does Travolta actually keep the 707 at the airpark? I've never been there but I know what it looks like and I doubt the runway's big enough. The taxiways definitely aren't.